Calling all Treadheads!! (Wall of text alert!)

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Captain Wheelgun
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Calling all Treadheads!! (Wall of text alert!)

Post by Captain Wheelgun »

I need some help from any of the Armor and Mech. Infantry types who lurk here.

I’m trying to figure out what equipment to give the Texas Army / Marine Corps for upcoming parts of the third book in the ‘Republic of Texas Navy’ series. Hopefully y’all have read the first two books of the series. Here are my basic starting assumptions:

1. The Texas Army has a long tradition of operating as mounted infantry and horse artillery. They have always placed a premium on mobility because of the size of the area they need to cover and their likely opponents (bandits, un-settled Indians, Mexican Army, and U.S. Cavalry). The Marine Corps had been traditional sea-service troops. For constitutional reasons, large parts of the Army have been transferred to the Marine Corps for service overseas.

2. The Army & Marine Corps began modernizing in the early 1920’s, after reviewing the reports from observers on several fronts of the Great War.The Army had previously issued license-made Winchester 1873 and 1892 carbines in .44-40 along with Remington Rolling-Block rifles for long-range work. The Marines also used the Winchester carbines. Both services adopted a new rifle in 1925, a shortened M1917 Enfield (Texas bought the Remington-Eddystone tooling & jigs after that factory closed) in .300 Savage with detachable box magazines. They adopted a version of the Czech ZB-28 machine gun, (similar to the BREN gun), in the same chambering. They went for .300 Savage because their research & testing led them to conclude they could get sufficient effective range and stopping power in a much lighter, lower recoiling gun. The rifle and machine gun can share magazines, the rifle is usually issued with 15 round mags, the MG 40 round.

They also make the .50 Browning MG under license, mostly for aircraft but they are also usable on the ground.

For heavier stuff, Texas licensed production of the Flak 18 88mm (3.5”) anti-aircraft gun from the pre-Nazi government of Germany, including the control systems. They manufacture those, along with shortened and simplified versions as regular towed artillery. They also make a 5” (127mm) howitzer derived from the 5”/51 naval gun. Since they are spinning up production of an 8”/55 gun for a new class of cruisers, there is also the possibility for an 8” gun or howitzer in the near future. All of these guns have AP and HE rounds available. They recently developed recoilless rifles, in 88 and 127 mm versions.

Finally they make a 1” (25.4mm) auto-cannon, similar to the 25mm Bushmaster chain gun, designed to be mounted in aircraft and on vehicles. This has AP and HE rounds. There is a single-shot gun in this caliber that was made for testing and development of the cartridge that can also be used as a light anti-armor gun. This is the same round as used in the 1” motorized gatling guns that the Texas Navy uses for shipboard AA defense,

3. Texas is willing to buy foreign designs, but prefers to manufacture locally to minimize dependence on other countries.They have several home-grown motor vehicle manufacturers, as well as plants owned / operated by Ford and General Motors. Armor can be made in the same plants that make it for the shipbuilding industry, up to a maximum of 6” thick plates.

4. They prefer to use diesel engines wherever possible, to minimize the risk of fire / explosions.

I wrote all that so I can ask you this: If Texas started looking at mechanization in the early 1920’s, what would be reasonable for them to have in the way of troop transports and armored fighting vehicles by mid 1940? I was thinking of something like the deuce-and-a-half for the standard truck, with a half-tracked version of that for off-road use, along with armored cars mounting .50 cal MGs or 1” single-shot or auto-cannons.

For the scouting forces, I was thinking about a 3-wheeled motorcycle. Picture a Harley WLA crossed with a Can-Am Spyder. This would be able to pull a small utility trailer or a carriage for an MG, mortar, or recoilless.

Finally, what would be a reasonable tank for them to have in development but not quite ready for production at that time?
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Jered
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Re: Calling all Treadheads!! (Wall of text alert!)

Post by Jered »

1) For troop transport, and APC use, they could have something tracked like a Bren Gun/Universal Carrier. The US really finish developing halftracks until about 1940 or so. They might be able to acquire some from the British. They could probably license the design and adapt a diesel engine to it. To simply production and logistics, it's probably best to stick with variants of one vehicle for various purposes.

I'd recommend the Bren carrier for SP mortar, recon, light AT, and infantry transport. They could also probably adapt a dual .50 caliber MG mount for AA work instead of the 25mm gun. You could also mount a recoilless rifle, but those have issues with backblast.


It might be interesting to mass produce those for infantry and light AT work with some sort of licensed 25mm Hotchkiss AA gun on them. You could probably also stick a 25mm AT gun on them, too.

For trucks, prewar, it's probably more accurate to have the Dodge WC series.

2) As far as tanks go, the best ones of the interwar period are probably various British Cruiser tanks. The M2 Stuart is also probably good. If you really want to throw people for a loop, procure some Toldi tanks from Hungary. As a general rule if you want to select a good tank, look at the number of crew. Tanks with 2 or 3 crew are likely to be bad because the crew is overworked. Tanks with 4 or 5 crew are likely to be more effective because the crew is less overworked.

3) It's reasonable for them to have something like the M4 Sherman in development. In fact, the M4 Sherman is probably the tank best for their situation if they're covering a larger area. The ergonomics and livability of the tank are great and the sheer mechanical reliability of them makes an excellent fit for forces at the end of a long logistical tail. They are also relatively easy for the crew to repair. If your shipyard cranes of the same capacity as ones in the US, then they probably can't live much over 40 tons, so the Sherman offers superior strategic mobility there. Compare with the Tiger where the Germans had to take the tracks off to haul it around on a train. The US brought on back and had to do so with it in two pieces. The Sherman was also made with a diesel engine variant.

Stay away from anything German after the PZIV. The Tiger has terrible mobility and is a maintenance hog. Panthers would catch on fire if you tilted them wrong because of a leaky fuel system, their final drive was crap and needed depot level overhaul after 250km. The Tiger II is...just bad. US Army Ordnance destroyed a couple of T-34s they got for testing by driving them a couple hundred miles. The T-34 also had a poor two man turret. They had a loader and a commander/gunner/wigwag guy.

The Sherman has also been modified to use a 105mm gun, so you could probably fit an 88 on it.

The Germans got a couple of things right, though. They equipped every tank with a radio and had the concept of Auftragstaktik - essentially highly decentralized command.

Stay away from French tanks. Stay away from early war Soviet tanks.
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Captain Wheelgun
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Re: Calling all Treadheads!! (Wall of text alert!)

Post by Captain Wheelgun »

Hi Jered,

Thanks for your reply.

That Hungarian tank looks interesting, as does the Swedish tank they copied it from.

You’ve given me a lot of good information here.
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Jered
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Re: Calling all Treadheads!! (Wall of text alert!)

Post by Jered »

You are welcome.

If you need more, check out Nicholas Moran:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp4j9Y ... 4iZroCb99A

Also Bovington Tank Museum:

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTankMuseum
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